Still working on this :-)

 I saw an ad for a new (remake) horror movie and said, "I don't even know what *I* did last summer."

This summer, vaccinated and covid-tested, I did go to Dark Odyssey Summer Camp, and that was fantastic. We stayed outdoors 99% of the time and fixed all our own meals by our campsite. And only played with each other. But we got to see and greet and hug and chat with other people. So many lovely kinksters! I have missed that so much!

That Weird Adult Party, the Hotel Thing…

Content note: This is one of the sex/kink/bdsm posts -- anyone who doesn’t want to read about that stuff, you can skip this whole post!

Let the Wild Rumpus start!

Romantic Polyamory (Death Is Elsewhere)

Recently I was having coffee with one of my oldest friends. We don’t see each other that often, but she’s known me for almost 30 years -- since before mr.d and I were a couple. Over a delicious dark roast in her chic apartment, I caught her up on the poly news: not only have I had at least one other partner for the past, um, 12 years, but for about 6 months now, mr.d has also had another partner. They are long-distance, but they’ve been getting together every month, and they text every day, and it’s all very sweet and delightful. I told her about the poly word “compersion”...

dodo 2020 -- The Consolation

...A special freak among my beloved freaks...

I've been sober since 2013, and polyamorous for longer than that. This New Year's Eve was the first gathering where I had both of my partners as well as my lovely new metamour all in one place, all openly being us, with a group of friends who like and accept us. It was awesome.

I was also the only sober person at the gathering. (We had some guests who drink only lightly, and/or who prefer the attentions of the locally legalized herb.) My darling was the designated bartender & did keep me in delicious mocktails. We kissed at midnight and there were fireworks and everything went swimmingly. Here are my mocktail recipes and the other tactics I used:

• The Consolation: fresh mint leaves, muddled. Then add grapefruit and lime juices, opt. grapefruit bitters, and top with ice and tonic water.
• Ginger beer (I like Gosling's) with rhubarb bitters, or with a dash of lime/lemon and grapefruit bitters. The Fee Bros. bitters are non-alcoholic, even though they technically have to list alcohol on their labels because some of the ingredients are tinctured before they are made into bitters. (In the past I have quizzed them about this at some length over email. Thank you Fee Bros. customer support!)
• PJ <3: I texted a sober comrade. I had made a list a few days before the party, and although I have several extra-wonderful friends who sometimes abstain in solidarity and support, I don't have any actual sober friends in my actual city. I reached out online, and PJ responded with warm supportive texts and willingness to have me text her in the moment if things got sucky. I ended up being OK at the party and just texted her the next day to thank her; just having her out there, willing to listen and cheer me on, was really helpful.

• So much sugar! I tried all the cookies. My friend who brought boozy cake warned me before she even unwrapped it, so I did not have any inadvertent boozy cake moments. I did get into the peppermint bark, and I felt dehydrated when I woke up -- despite neither imbibing nor smoking anything -- just from all the sugar! That is OK.

Clearly, my New Year's Resolution is to form some sober friendships in my actual town. And to keep kissing all the people and eating all the cookies. Also, I have been bingeing the Dildorks podcast and Tina Horn's Why Are People Into That?! and remembering how much fun I had at the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Summit in 2018, so I'm starting up this blog in renewed earnest & will be making serious plans for Woodhull in August.

(I am thinking about how to throw a sober meetup at Woodhull, so ping me if you're into that! I sent them an email but I'm sure they are not thinking about all that quite yet. It's not until August. Tickets aren't on sale yet. But I am going! Watch this space. I'll also start using my @dirty_sober twitter account to alert folks to new posts and anything related to this blog or the memoir project.)

A little compassion and a salted caramel chocolate.

I had an intense kinky long weekend, so now I have to write about subdrop. *sigh*

Subdrop is a subset (heh) of endorphin crash; see also "top drop." See also "event drop" or "con drop," after the wild activity of a long-anticipated convention or festival is over. Tuesday is a good day for drop. On Monday I was catching back up with my sweet regular life, reconnecting with my beloved nestmate, Mr. Darkness, and having a cozy TV night together. Then on Tuesday afternoon, when I should have been hotly productive, I began to flounder. That was when the bleak mood of exhausted despair set in. Everything I tried to work on was terrible. My body was terrible. Oh hello, I said to my inner monster: I see what you're trying to do. Nice fucking try.